blog some are going to washington d.c. and here is what's coming up tonight on the big picture one of the nation's largest mobile phone companies is being sold to a foreign corporation based out of japan what does this deal mean for the american consumer and how does the ongoing buyout of american industries by foreign nations over the last thirty years affect our economy's standing in the twenty first century and where is mitt romney fit in when it comes to the great so all answers coming up in just a moment also mitt romney got what he wanted it's now a close race between him and the president but now romney may have

a whole new problem on his hands his name is gary johnson libertarian candidate for president joins me in just a few minutes and later the koch brothers have promised to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat president obama and progressive in this election but that's not enough i don't want america's most notorious oligarchy are doing to their employees now to ensure that mitt romney wins the white house come november. you need to know this slowly but surely the united states of america is being eaten alive by foreign transnational corporations today news broke that telecom giant sprint is being bought by the foreign japanese corporation softbank for more than twenty eight billion dollars deal which is the largest american acquisition by a japanese company in history seventy percent of sprint will now be owned by

offshore investors the deal will likely be approved next year making softbank sprint the third largest mobile phone company in. the world's not only that this deal will suck billions in future revenue and profits out of the united states and into the japanese economy that's already the case of the nation's fourth largest mobile phone company mobile which is already owned by the german company bullshit telecom a g in fact there are so few american telecom companies in manufacturers our nation will likely have to rely on foreign telecoms like china's y.y. to build the next generation of telecom infrastructure in the united states that's how bad things have gotten for american industries. every single second in america over four thousand dollars worth of our industry is sold off to foreign investors by the time we had our first break tonight over three million dollars worth of

american own industries will have been sold off to wealthy foreign interests when ronald reagan came into the white house we owned more foreign companies than any other country in the world and now it's the reverse why because of reaganomics and insane so-called free trade policies free trade policies that today are allowing us to be eaten alive by foreign transnationals free trade policies the left our nation with as much as an eight hundred billion dollar annual trade deficit think about that every single year we had other nations eight hundred billion us dollars in exchange for things we could just as easily have made right here and since they are u.s. dollars that we're giving them and those foreign nations eventually have to spend that money back here in the united states we should the currency and that's exactly what they're doing buying up us companies and buying up our commons they're buying up sprint they already bought up t. mobile they're buying up parking meters in chicago water systems around the country toll roads in indiana virginia and texas not to mention tens of thousands of for

profit corporations as we talk about later in the show they're even buying up private charter schools to educate our kids at least on a foreign company buys an american company or buys a chunk of our commons that's future profits getting sucked out of our economy and dropped into that foreign nation but that's just one example of this foreign corporate takeover. just look at what's happening with the giant canadian transfer corporation trans canada which as we speak is bulldozing private property in texas to build a massive pipeline across the united states down to the gulf coast where toxic tar sands oil will be refined and shipped all over the world we get higher prices for gasoline and the pollution from the refining. canada gets the money from selling us the tar sands oil and in england brazil and china get the gasoline and diesel fuel these companies will export for our gulf coast as we talked about last week seventy

eight year old eleanor fairchild was arrested for trespassing on her own property as she tried to stop trans canada's bulldozers from clearing away trees on her land were quickly becoming the world's mining and pollution waste pit and while all americans should be outraged by this there are some american companies that are actually actively participating in this predation one of the most aggressive of those bain capital yet bad business that mitt romney started back in the one nine hundred eighty s. in that he still gets a ninety thousand dollar a day paycheck from has made billions seizing control of american companies got in them and then selling them off to foreign investors in his words of fact that romney describe the process the business model of bain as harvesting company is. bain capital it is an investment partnership which was formed to invest in start up companies and ongoing companies then to take an active hand in managing them and

hopefully five to eight years later to harvest them at a significant profit today one of those companies getting harvested is sensitive technologies in freeport illinois despite being more profitable than ever since saddam's american factory is currently being taken apart with its components being shipped off to china and all of its one hundred seventy workers set to lose their jobs at the end of the year replaced by chinese workers that's the decision being made by bain capital which owns since saddam workers at the factory have been begging mitt romney to intervene to save their jobs. but he won't he and the other corporate outsourcers are committed to getting all the short term profits they can even though it means the long term of the american economy welcome to third world america courtesy of reagan's clinton's and bush's embrace of so-called free trade something being continued tragically now by the obama administration here more than

two employees of companies now under the control of being capital libya wilson who works at bain owned dunkin donuts and richard who didn't who works at bain own burlington coat factory welcome to both. my great to have you with us libya could you tell us what do you do in a new york and what is the bain worker bus tour while i'm in new york and being bus tour basically shedding awareness on what their romney economy looks like for me and my family. and it's great being on a bus tour because i have a lot of a similar stories with people on the being biased they all work for dunkin donuts but they do work for being companies like burlington coat factory here send sada my friend marianne. and. we share the same stories like when i get in treated fairly we're not getting any benefits when i get in compas say they're

for the work that we do and we're just basically out here trying to tell people that the romney economy is not a good thing for us and our families richard libya just mentioned we're we're out here illustrating what the bain economy looks like and talking with people about what the brain economy looks like what does that mean. will pretty much means there is a calm before the strike in turn will i mean you have average americans are here struggling to make ends meet when issue to be light day we shouldn't have to live in a country where you have to try and work so hard to make a minimum amount of money to try and pay your rent or to try and pay your bills and or to try and to try and clothe your children i mean that's absurd and should be like the. best way to romney economy as we live it every day every time i go to work so there's libya it is the the assault on the middle class is certainly seems

. libya you you mentioned what's what's the latest on this and sort of factor in a what i. well the latest is they have nine weeks and still they have no jobs when they're consider the forty seven percent that mitt romney mentioned. you know a lot of work there for. six to like thirty years and. they are they were like hoping to get run time and now they'll have nothing and will have to start fresh and a lot of them are older. lady she's fifty four years old and to be honest you know a lot of companies what younger people because you know they're starting fresh start training them fresh older people they just consider them harder and harder to

learn so it's like they they don't even know if they're going to get a job even in fast food work and minimum wage so i just my heart goes out said yeah i agree and for our viewers bain port dot com is a website that. has a lot of information about what's going on there that's inside a plant and the occupation is going on across the street for it richard you guys are on this bus tour has been workers bus tour tell us a little bit about the bus tour where you're going where who you're encountering and what kind of feedback you're getting from people what kind of gigs you're doing what you know what's going on it will the the bang bus tour we're pretty much going everywhere that mitt romney goes i mean we're going hard first on him and we're going out there to the community other activities to other people and we're telling . our situations our stories and we're informing them about who they're going to

vote for the about their presidential about their own presidential elect the mitt romney. you know we we've been trailing this guy we were going through various cities as you know we're now we're in new york and next up we're here to boston. reaches been so fiercely on and we did a case of these goofy back and community has been great i mean we've been coming surrounds of applause and cheers and it's been fantastic i loved every moment of it that's great libya we just have a little less than a minute left the the famous slogan of the. clinton campaign was it's the economy stupid isn't that pretty much the case now with this being a commie. yeah it's it's a mess you know we and we want something that works for us and our families and other people out there that share the same camera lifestyles and we just want to live comfortably and happily and get get better for all the work and hard time we

put in so our jobs you know so that's basically what we just want to live a good happy life like everyone else thanks for sharing with us tonight and thanks for sharing with america your stories i wish you the very best libby wilson thank you livia wilson richard and. best of luck i thank you. after the break we'll be joined by libertarian presidential candidate gary johnson who may end up playing the role of spoiler the selection also a bombshell new report from in these times magazine exposed how the koch brothers are stifling the political speech of tens of thousands of their employees labor journalist mike joins me to give us new details on this breaking story. there.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that many americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about you sir are a fool you know what kind of mind their terrorist cells in your neighborhood want usa to defeat terrorism on limbaugh and the christian point you. can see your beliefs about it because it's going to fall for you to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells us sensationalistic garbage because of breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture. of the from.

berlin. libertarian presidential candidate gary johnson may actually be poised to make a huge impact on the election this year the race has tightened up considerably since president obama and mitt romney's first debate carrie johnson may play a role in picking who our next president will be according to the latest polling from zogby mitt romney now leads the president nationwide by a slim margin of forty five point one to forty four point five percent however when gary johnson's name is included in the zogby polling romney actually trails the president by a half point forty five and a half to forty five these are obviously small margins and there's still lots of time for the polls to change but if you're a conservative who prefers the so-called free market but doesn't like drones

nixon's drug war indefinite detention and surveillance and gary johnson is your guy question is is it worth voting for him even if it might cost mitt romney's election well let's ask the man himself former new mexico governor and current libertarian candidate for president gary johnson joins me from new york governor welcome tom great to be with you thanks for having me on thanks for joining us what about your platform do you think might appeal most to romney voters. well be the dollars and cents side but you know there have been five states that have actually put this question they've actually polled this question in three states i take more votes away from obama that would be nevada new mexico and colorado and the other two states where they put this to the test on north carolina michigan i take more votes from romney's so the notion of being more conservative than romney when it comes to dollars and cents the notion of being more liberal than obama when it comes to

civil liberties is do you think that that the. decriminalizing marijuana which the libertarian party has always stood for and decriminalizing prostitution i doubt the the prostitution constituency is really huge but it seems to me that the decriminalization of pot could actually be a position that could turn an election if if one of the major parties were to to embrace it is is that do you do you expect that that's the issue that's causing you to pull support away from obama no tom i really see it a comeback combination certainly of legalizing marijuana i do believe we should legalize marijuana in the military interventions look there's a consequence to the fact that we militarily intervene on this planet and that consequence is that we have hundreds of millions of enemies to this country that but for those military interventions wouldn't otherwise exist i'm reading today that we're funding the syrian rebels and they're just ottis really

it goes on and on and on didn't we fund some of bin laden in afghanistan well yes we did look at that consequence and ben before that saddam hussein and before that the shah of iran and on and on but on and on and goes i'm curious though you said you take you're pulling some voters away from romney and some away from obama i'm curious your opinion of you know i mine apparently you disagree i'm curious your opinion of what are the issues that are. either republican or democrat democratic voters to say you know i think i'll go libertarian this time well so i don't want to bomb iran i want to get out of afghanistan and bring the troops home tomorrow i believe that marriage equality is a constitutionally guaranteed right i would like to end the drug wars i would have never signed the national defense authorization act allowing for you and i to be arrested and detained without being charged i'd like to repeal the patriot act i

think we need to balance the federal budget now or we're going to find ourselves in a monetary collapse and then i'm the only candidate advocating a limon aiding income tax corporate tax abolishing the i.r.s. and replacing all of that with one federal consumption tax i'm embracing the fair tax i think tens of millions of jobs get created in this country with a zero corporate tax rate environment so big differences all those issues yeah what about social security medicare or the e.p.a. a is it true that you advocate basically privatizing or any and all of those organizations that and e.p.a. environmental protection agency what about food and drug protection u.s.d.a. f.d.a. . well i think i think it's got to be mutual sacrifice on the part of all of us to balance the federal budget so that's a forty three percent reduction in federal spending what is a social social security's absolutely saveable it's just a program that needs to take in more money than what it pays out i do advocate the

fair tax so no longer would that be a deduction from your payroll check nor would it be an employer match that would come out of the proceeds of the fair tax so security raising the retirement age you could have a very fair means testing you could change the escalator built into social security from the wage index the inflation rate simple fixes relative to medicare medicare if i may interrupt you aren't all of those violations of the principles of the libertarian party i mean isn't the basic principle libertarian party that there shouldn't be social security that's unconstitutional well you know i would argue that tenants of the libertarian party would start with let's not spend more money than what we're taking in i think as a whole this country believes that there are those that are truly in need and no i wouldn't say that that's a tenant of the libertarian party at all but ten in the libertarian party is let's stop with the military interventions let's balance the federal budget look we have

a growing police state in this country let's roll that back military interventions stop and then balance the federal budget and act as a tax system that really kicks crony capitalism in the rear end i mean the country's up for sale both parties are selling loopholes how about creating a system a simple system no more i.r.s. where you can't even buy these loopholes everybody has a law everybody has an equal shot at the opportunities that the country has to offer you're a persuasive sales person governor gary johnson thank you very much thank you for having me great having you with us. in screwed news corporate c.e.o.'s are turning their employees into republican foot soldiers over the weekend labor reporter mike elk with in these times magazine

revealed that the koch brothers sent political flyers to all of their tens of thousands of employees at georgia pacific hinting that their jobs might be on the line if they didn't vote for mitt romney a letter warns of employees elect barack obama than quote many of our more than fifty thousand u.s. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences and quote the letter goes on to list political candidates of the koch support by coincidence all of them republicans i'll call so exposed to social media rules of georgia pacific that try to limit the political speech of their workers as well as intimidate workers who are too politically active against republicans because of the latest in a long line of c.e.o. c.e.o.'s who made veiled or in some places explicit threats against employees who won't vote for mitt romney last week westgate resorts billionaire c.e.o. david segal warned his employees that should barack obama raises taxes then he be forced to downsize his company also as g software solutions c.e.o.

arthur allen sent an e-mail to his employees warning that there would be fought if barack obama wins the presidency and then there's murray energy the largest private coal company in the nation which according to the new republic has coerced its employees to donate money to republican politicians so exactly what is going on here is the new strategy for the corporate elite to seize power to force their low wage workers to become their political slaves to here to tell us more about this story is michaele labor journalist and staff writer for in these times magazine mike welcome back good to be on the show great to have you with us how does this story advance what we already know about the koch's political activities well i think you knew in a certain way. it shines a new light in the sense that here the koch's they've always said they've been for freedom in libertarian ideals right so while they've been taking advantage of the new free speech rights granted to them under citizens united the corporate free speech rights campaign among their employees because he says and united lifted the

restrictions on employers talking directly to the people they employ about elections and what what were the restrictions before that unless you were in a top managerial position and you couldn't discuss politics with your boss so if you were a factory worker g.m. you know the c.e.o. of g.m. could not send you a letter in the mail saying you know vote for mitt romney how long ago was that part of mccain feingold or is that go back the way back to the seventy's ok so that's been my interrupt no no that's been on the books since the since the seventy's ok and actually what citizens united has done is made it legal now for employers to talk to their workers about who they're voting for actually it's legal now if you had employees you want to have all day long captive audience meetings where you brought in experts to talk about voting for mitt romney you could have those meetings and then you could grill. your employees about who they're going to vote for in front of their other employees you can interrogate them was well this is not unlike the way that they they deal with people who are trying to you know

yeah it's basically they're taking the anti-union playbook which is a culture of fear of intimidation to stop a union drive in applying it to an election because you know here you've got folks a lot of folks working long hours don't have time to read the news of the boss comes in and says hey we might need to close down the factory if we don't lose if we don't win this election that's going to persuade a lot of people so but what i find fascinating about this is at the same time as they've been expanding the corporate free speech rights to talk to their employees about politics they've been decreasing the free speech rights of their employees to talk about politics they've implemented this new social media policy which states that a worker can be fired for non-work related things they post on their facebook effects georgia pacific sprint or reputation of a coax have taken that to mean you can't criticize the. owners of coke industries on your facebook page on your personal facebook personal facebook page and there was actually a guy that we did a story on them last year and we quoted a georgia pacific worker a warehouse worker now he was called out called in to meetings with his supervisors

where they try to mount over this and since he was in a union they couldn't quite fire him right away and they didn't want to fire the guy because you know he was quoted in an article but when he went to go get a promotion he got a perfect score in his evaluation he got a three point seven out of four and all great marks all the other analytics that go into it but they noted in his evaluation that he talked about politics too much on the job. so here you have this culture and now the koch's have also implemented a new policy which is that if you want to run for elected office or serve on the board of a nonprofit you have to get approval from your boss so if you want to be on the board of your local church you have to go to your supervisor and say hey i'm a member of the mormon church and this is like in the book going back to feudal times when the king basically owned you and told you that you could marry him i mean that's that's that's astounding we just have thirty seconds by what what was the coke response to your investigation we did this all and it's legal and they might be right about some of it i don't think they're right about their social media policy but that's to be determined by the n.l.r.b.

when the union is suing president charges so we'll see where that goes and you're releasing some documents you've got from within code industries any bombshells there. were one of our most fascinating years of the koch's support pro gun policies but a georgia pacific they banned we're going to bring guns to work but you know who no yeah we're all. descendants mike thanks a lot of the eurozone always great to see you like alex thank you this is just the latest example of how the super rich of a lot more free speech rights in america than working people do and since many americans are desperate for a job and they have to go along with what their bosses say just to be able to keep food on the table knowing full well. a vote for mitt romney is against their own best interests this is how the corporatocracy it's today. coming up wal-mart is the world's largest private employer but having so many employees may

not be all agree with laws employers are threatening the strikes the latest in a wal-mart workers strike and what it means for black friday after the break.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew. i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.